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Posts Tagged: V8

When Ferrari passed on refurbishing the underpowered Sunbeam Alpine’s engine, Rootes Motors turned to Carroll Shelby, fresh off building the AC Cobra. What followed was a secretly funded Ford V8 swap, a surprised company owner, and an order so large it was the biggest Ford had ever received from another automaker. Read on to find out how the Sunbeam Tiger came together in eight months.

At Summernats 30, Killa B Camaro delivered one of the most talked-about burnout performances the event has ever seen, running a massive blower stacked on a big-block V8 that buried the car in blue smoke. Street Outlaws cast member AZN even rode along to see what all the hype was about. Watch the full run that’s racked up millions of views and counting.

Filmed on the lot at Garrett Classics in Lewisville, Texas, this 1966 Pontiac GTO wears the setup serious muscle car buyers wanted most: a 389-cubic-inch V8 with Tri-Power carburetion and a genuine four-speed manual. Factory power brakes, power steering, and correct Rally wheels round out a car Pontiac loyalists in the comments call one of the best-preserved examples they’ve seen. It’s unrestored, unmodified, and exactly as honest as a 1966 GTO should be.

For 1970 Plymouth severed the Barracuda’s last ties to the Valiant, dropped it onto the new E-body platform alongside the Challenger, and built an engine bay big enough for a 426 Hemi. Two model years later, insurance surcharges and emissions rules had already begun taking it apart. Here is what changed between 1970 and 1971, and which one-year-only details separate the two.

Dodge’s 2017 Challenger SRT Hellcat hid a 707-horsepower supercharged HEMI under an ordinary-looking body, backed by a 650 lb-ft torque figure, a 199 mph top speed, and a 3.5-second sprint to 60. It even shipped with two different keys that changed how much power the car was willing to give you. Read on for the numbers, the rivals it outran, and what clean examples are worth on today’s collector market.

This 1973 Lincoln Continental wasn’t restored for a trophy — it was rebuilt because the owner’s mother once drove this exact car, and Manns Restoration in Festus, Missouri took that responsibility seriously. The numbers-matching 460 V8 got a full rebuild, the suspension and brakes were gone through top to bottom, and the body came back looking showroom-fresh under a new white vinyl top. Watch to see how a family memory became a rolling restoration.

Only about 50 of the roughly 44,808 Mustang convertibles Ford built in 1967 carried the rare K-code 289 HiPo V8, and most of that engine’s already-tiny production run went straight to Carroll Shelby instead. This triple-black example from the Brothers Collection might be the only one wearing a black deluxe interior. Here’s why documented K-code cars carry such a premium, and how collectors prove one is real.

Plymouth built just 2,128 Road Runner convertibles for 1969, and only 769 came with a four-speed manual behind the 383. This one’s got both, plus the Air Grabber hood and a full options list that shows exactly how fast Road Runner buyers dressed up Plymouth’s bare-bones performance idea. Here’s the full story behind the rarest configuration of the model’s debut convertible year.

In 1964, Ford squeezed a race-bred 427 V8 into the Galaxie 500, and NASCAR promptly banned the racing version as “too exotic” before it could dominate a single superspeedway. Only 3,140 R-code Galaxies were built that year, and just 76 are known to survive today. Here’s the story behind Ford’s short-lived big-block gamble and the handful of survivors still turning heads.

The first-generation Chevelle produced one of the rarest and most faked muscle cars General Motors ever built. Only 201 Z-16 Malibu SS 396 cars were assembled in 1965, roughly 75 are believed to survive, and their six-figure values have created an entire cottage industry of counterfeits. The reason the fakes fall apart has nothing to do with paperwork. Read on for how to read a real one, and what made the 1966 SS 396 different.

1976 was the last model year Pontiac put a 455-cubic-inch V8 in the Trans Am, and by then emissions equipment and a tightening regulatory net had cut its rated output to a fraction of what the same displacement produced five years earlier. That number is also the least interesting thing about the car. The 455 survived into 1976 largely because Pontiac refused to let it die, and it was gone the moment the model year closed. Read on for why this particular Trans Am matters more than its window sticker suggests.

Pontiac’s 326 was actually a 336 and the 350 that replaced it in 1968 was really a 354.74, which nobody at the division ever adequately explained. The G3 LeMans carried that engine through some of the best years of the A-body, picked up big valve Ram Air heads for 1969, and by 1970 could be ordered with GTO-sized engines in a cheaper package. Read on for the LeMans years worth knowing, including the budget hardtop Chevrolet undercut within weeks.

Boosted Bertha is a 1965 Chevrolet C10 wearing a supercharger and a stance that puts the rocker panels within an inch of the pavement, but the reason a build like this works starts with a decision Chevrolet made back in 1963. Underneath the boost sits a coil-sprung chassis that was already better than anything else in the segment, plus a small-block architecture that takes to forced induction easily. Read on for what Chevy actually sold in 1965 and what these trucks bring now.

Pontiac spent 1968 quietly fixing the Firebird’s first-year problems, dropping the vent windows for Astro Ventilation, replacing single-leaf rear springs with multi-leaf units, and adding staggered shocks. The new 350, which actually displaced 354 cubic inches, came as a 265-horsepower two-barrel or a 320-horsepower HO. Pontiac built 107,112 Firebirds that year. This one still wears its factory engine and interior. Read on for what originality really requires.

Ford built 472,121 Mustangs for 1967, and fewer than five hundred of them carried the K-code Hi-Po 289 with its solid lifters, 10.5:1 compression, and 271 horsepower at 6,000 rpm. This Wimbledon White convertible claims to be one, wearing a GT Equipment Group that was real hardware rather than a stripe kit. Telling a genuine car from a convincing tribute comes down to one character in the VIN. Read on for what to look for.

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